Excerpt from Invisible Cities by Italo Calvino, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

However the city may really be, beneath this thick coating of signs, whatever it may contain or conceal, you leave Tamara without having discovered it. Outside, the land stretches, empty, to the horizon; the sky opens, with speeding clouds. In the shape that chance and wind give the clouds, you are already intent on recognizing figures: a sailing ship, a hand, an elephant... .

Excerpted from Invisible Cities by Italo Calvino. Copyright © 1978 by Italo Calvino. Excerpted by permission of Mariner Books. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.